


chime

by justsleepwalkin



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Escape from the Underdark, Gen, Introspection, episode 13
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-12
Updated: 2017-03-12
Packaged: 2018-10-03 02:31:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10233725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justsleepwalkin/pseuds/justsleepwalkin
Summary: His mind slides under their cacophony, lulled almost to complacency, too unaccustomed to the hive to be able to properly stay afloat.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I've been slowly moving through Critical Role. I had feelings.

The word “friend” is an enigma, surely not something for one such as himself. _Ally_. Ally was safe, and even that was _temporary_. Nothing to stay... attached to. Allies couldn't change what he thought of himself, his people, his hive. Allies were nothing but tools to be used. Friends did not exist.

And yet, when he's embraced by his hive and the Elder Brain, the elation he feels is thanks to this band of misfits. Who stood up for him, who— _shaped_ him, anew, like clay. 

Clarence. Clay. No. No. NO. 

Hundreds of voices swim into the silence that had been abysmal in his mind. So long has he been alone, a stain to his people. And now, _now_ they're forced to accept him because of his actions, when he should have been accepted all along, because that's how people should be, and—

_NO._

He squashes the thought himself. Those misfits can't change him. He won't allow it. 

So many voices engulf his fledgling identity, push away his connection to minds he shouldn't be seeking. Alliances break. He is many, he is not one. His will is the same wave as his people, and his people need to feed, free for the first time in so very long. Without K'Varn, there's a new, feverish spike through their minds. He wonders if once it has been cleansed and their needs satiated, if they will see him differently. If they'll cast him out once more. And this time, this time he'll have no one to fall to. No one to say _you have a place with us._

Whispers. _They would never have given you what you need. Kill them._ Hisses. _You would never be whole with them. KILL THEM!_

His mind slides under their cacophony, lulled almost to complacency, too unaccustomed to the hive to be able to properly stay afloat. He moves as one with his people until he hears a chime from a corner of his mind. He remembers music and it pulls his mind closer to the surface, fixated, salivating. If he can just seize that melody, he might be able to retain just a little of what he had lost to the hive.

He takes hold—

One attack on him, from the goliath. Swashes of blood from his shoulder and chest from an axe. He sees red, buffeted in a loop between his mind and Grog's rage. It splits his attention from his meal, even though he's so hungry. He needs this, desperately. They _know_ he needs this. 

Before hesitation can take hold, there's another voice sliding into him, redirecting his focus. He takes further hold of the bard and arrows slink into his skin from above. Angry now he turns to glare up at the ranger, seething to her _you've all done your work, now it's time to feast!_

The music. He can _feel_ the music, at the edge of his consciousness, a beacon as he's surrounded by hundreds of minds, still disorganized while the Elder Brain tries to shake back to awareness. 

_Tell us._

_Tell us of them. Everything._

Unexpected defiance rears within him. A resounding _NO_ ripples out of him to the rest of the illithid. 

There's an explosive noise. He thinks it may be their fury at his reluctance. They took him back, after all. His voice is a mere tool, his information to be joined with theirs. They are allies, temporary at best. He isn't equal to them, still with this stain of his. 

His connection to everything shatters apart. 

A blast breaks through his skull. 

His hold slips. 

He hears that chime again, now distant as he crumples away from the bard, lifelessly, to the ground.

**Author's Note:**

> I know Clarota was an evil mofo but I like the idea that there was a glimmer somewhere in him that didn't want things to go down this way. 
> 
> I wrote this in two different sittings and while I wanted it to be kind of disjointed, it sorta feel apart more in the end. Ah well.


End file.
